“Desert Rose” is a single from Sting’s album, Brand New Day(1999).
The lyrics of the song are inspired by the Frank Herbert novel, Dune, of which Sting is a fan.

Sting on Desert Rose:

All last summer I lived with Cheb Mami’s album. Eating, walking, all the time. His voice is an incredible instrument. He does whatever he wants with it, it really impressed me, as did his talent as a musician. I hadn’t got any idea of what he could sing, I didn’t know rai music. Then I saw him in Bercy with Khaled, Rachid Taha and this great orchestra… and Steve Hillage. Very impressed, I began to write a song on this experience and we met. I asked him if he’d like to sing for me, in a way to ‘authenticate’ my experience (ironic smile). He’s a lovely man. He sung without knowing what I was singing. As it happens, it’s about desire, craving. I asked him: just improvise, in arab, on my melody. Later I asked him what he was talking about, he answered that he sang about desire, craving of a loved person. I told him that it was exactly the song’s theme! So the music suggested those words. It was a sort of unconscious and automatic process. I always considered that it was the music which wrote the text. For this album, more than all the others, I began by writing the music, then I went walking and this music suggested a character, a story. Like a sculptor who kneads his material, then notices a nose, a leg. It’s longer, but more organic."

Source: sting.com